SANTA CLARA, Calif. – 1/3/2007 - Macrovision Corporation (Nasdaq: MVSN) today announced that, effective January 1, 2007, it acquired Mediabolic, Inc., a leading provider of software solutions for connected consumer electronics devices, such as televisions, set-top boxes and digital video recorders. Founded in 1999, Mediabolic was a privately-held company based in San Mateo, California.
The acquisition of Mediabolic extends Macrovision's capabilities in the delivery and enhancement of digital content to a wide variety of connected consumer electronics devices, a strategic priority for Macrovision and its customers. Mediabolic's open and intuitive entertainment networking software platform is an ideal complement to Macrovision's industry leading content protection, enhancement and delivery technology, which is used by Hollywood studios and other owners of high-value content around the world.
"Consumers want to interact with media and digital content whenever and wherever they want. Mediabolic is a key enabler of that experience and we believe in its innovative technology," said Fred Amoroso, CEO of Macrovision Corporation. "Mediabolic's software is a strong fit with our roadmap to help content owners transition from the world of physical media to the digital world on the strength of our technology and partner ecosystem."
While there has been an explosive growth in the availability of content on the Internet, such as television programming and movies, currently most consumers limit the viewing and storing of that content to a personal computer. Mediabolic's software platform directly addresses this problem by enabling consumer electronics companies to create devices that are capable of discovering, storing and playing back Internet-based content on their own, thus making it easier and more intuitive for consumers to enjoy all types of digital media in their living room with just a few clicks of the remote control.
"Mediabolic has successfully enabled CE manufacturers to play a new and meaningful role in the ways that people access and experience Internet-based content," said Dan Putterman, founder and CEO of Mediabolic. "According to Coughlin Associates, consumers are expected to be storing as much as four terabytes of personal and commercial content in their homes by 2010. We believe the opportunity to liberate content from the PC and move it throughout the home will become more important. By joining Macrovision, we will be in even a better position to help CE manufacturers, content owners and consumers work together to benefit from the emergence of digital media."
"Consumers want to be able to access and enjoy their digital entertainment content throughout their homes. But in order to make that desire a possibility, there is a need for a comprehensive solution to manage and distribute that content," said Morikazu Sano, senior vice president of global sales and marketing at Buffalo Technology. "At Buffalo, we are addressing that challenge by creating flexible products that offer consumers the most interoperable multimedia experience on the market today. Over the past 18 months, Buffalo and Mediabolic have partnered in developing four digital media-centric product families and we are looking forward to continuing to collaborate with them as part of the Macrovision family."
Macrovision paid approximately $43.5M in cash for all the outstanding shares of Mediabolic, Inc. The Mediabolic acquisition is expected to be accretive in 2008 but dilutive to Macrovision's earnings in 2007 by up to $0.10.
About Mediabolic Mediabolic, Inc. is a leading developer of entertainment networking software that enables manufacturers to create cutting-edge digital home products. The company’s technologies can be embedded in products like televisions, set-top boxes, NAS devices, mobile phones, and digital cameras so that consumer electronics and PC manufacturers can extend and differentiate their product lines. Using a standards-based, open architecture Mediabolic has enabled its customers to ship award-winning solutions across diverse platforms to the consumer market. Mediabolic is located in San Mateo, California. For more information, please visit
www.mediabolic.com.
About Macrovision Solutions Corporation
Macrovision Solutions Corporation is focused on providing a uniquely simple digital home entertainment experience by delivering solutions to businesses to protect, enhance and distribute digital goods to consumers across multiple channels. Macrovision's technologies are deployed by companies in the entertainment, consumer electronics, cable and satellite, and online distribution markets to solve industry-specific challenges and bring greater value and a more robust user experience to their customers. The result of deploying Macrovision's solutions is a simple end user experience for discovering, managing and enjoying digital content. Today, Macrovision provides connected middleware, media recognition, interactive programming guides, copy protection and rich media, data and metadata on music, games, movies and television programming. The company also operates an entertainment portal which can be found at http://www.allmusic.com/. Macrovision holds over 4,100 issued or pending patents and patent applications worldwide.
Macrovision is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, with numerous offices across the United States and around the world including Japan, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, and the United Kingdom. More information about Macrovision can be found at http://www.macrovision.com/.
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Forward Looking Statements
All statements contained herein that are not statements of historical fact, including statements that use the words "will" or "is expected to," or similar words that describe the Company's or its management's future plans, objectives, or goals, are "forward-looking statements" and are made pursuant to the Safe-Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause the actual results of the Company to be materially different from the historical results and/or from any future results or outcomes expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors are further addressed in the Company's most recent quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the period ended September 30, 2008 and such other documents as are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time (available at http://www.sec.gov/). The Company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this release, except as required by law.
